It is worthy of remark though, that he talked a good deal to himself as he went home, weary and uncomfortable from wearing tight boots, and bracing up.
“It won’t do,” he said. “I’m old enough to know better, and if I can see into such matters more clearly than I could twenty years ago, Bayle’s in love with her. Well, a good thing too, for I’m afraid Hallam is taken too, and—no, that would not do. I’ve nothing whatever against the fellow; a gentleman in his manners, the very perfection of a manager, but somehow I should not like to see her his wife.”
“Why?” he said after a pause.
He shook his head.
“I can’t answer that question,” he muttered; and he was as far off from the answer when six months had passed.
Volume One—Chapter Seven.
A Terrible Mistake.
“Going out for a drive?”